Seven Jewish Intellectuals Back Shultz Peace Initiative

Seven prominent Jewish intellectuals from the United States and Britain have called on Israel to support Secretary of State George Shultz’s Middle East peace initiative.

Their appeal was contained in a letter to the 100 Jewish intellectuals from six countries attending the Israel-Diaspora conference now being held in Israel on the subject of “The Future of Democracy in Israel.”

The seven signatories, who described themselves as “committed supporters of Israel,” are former British Academy of Sciences President Sir Isaiah Berlin, Lord Arnold Goodman, Lord Victor Rothschild and British Chief Rabbi Lord Immanuel Jakobovits, all of Great Britain; and Professor Henry Rosovsky, violinist Isaac Stern and author Saul Bellow, all Americans.

The letter-writers urged Israel to abandon what they considered dubiously effective short-term measures that “are likely sooner or later to lead to moral and political disaster.”

Instead, they wrote, Israel must look to compromise.

Yuval Neeman, head of the right-wing Tehiya party, dismissed the letter on the grounds that “none of its signatories has any background of defense and security considerations.” Knesset member Haim Druckman of the National Religious Party dismissed the signatories as “dwarfs.”